Ghostlike said:

Before I start, I would like to make a suggestion. A general paranormal discussion forum?

Done.

Ghostlike: I was intrigued by your questions, and glad that there is now a forum for a more general discussion of the paranormal.

Up front, let me say that I haven't yet seen/heard the podcast about skepticism and belief from Logisti and Stefan–so I apologize if I end up re-treading the ground they've already broken. I intend to look at their podcast–it's gotta be good!

What makes a believer? What makes a skeptic? Is there common ground for the two, and what makes us lean one way or the other? These are almost existentialist questions, and I would love to see the philosophically inclined among us attempt to answer them!

For many years, I was an unquestioning believer; I did not understand skepticism. To me, skepticism seemed dangerous, wrong, and egotistical. As someone who has developed skepticism, and is still growing in that skill or art or propensity, I can now look at unquestioning belief as dangerous, wrong, and egotistical!

There's a duality at play here: a thesis/antithesis, a yin/yang, a right/wrong, etc. The secret, at least for me, is to try to negotiate the way between these oppositions, finding my way within the abstract notion that we often call "the gray." Some might call it a "synthesis."

I have discovered that belief, in itself, is strongly associated with desire. The fact is that we believe what we *choose* to believe, and that choice is most often the result of what we desire reality to be, whether we know it consciously or not. Belief is most often not a conscious choice, but rather, one that is shaped by our upbringing and personality traits, as well as cultural conditioning. It isn't until we honestly confront our beliefs with *hard questions* that we begin to see why we believe what we do.

Those "hard questions" come from the skeptics' camp, and they're threatening to a believer. The truth is, skepticism will undermine blind, unquestioning belief, putting it all into question and taking away all claims of truth, but the truth *also* is that skepticism will set a believer free. What I mean by that is that a believer will be able to make *conscious* choices about a belief or belief system, rather than be tied to a passive, reactionary belief system that is threatened by questions and falls apart under questioning.

I believe in the veracity of a metaphysical reality because I choose to, given the information I have (which is always open to question and revision). I also recognize, consciously, my desires for belief, and I am willing to let go of any belief and its accompanying desire when faced with a contradiction found in known or scientific fact. Not one of us on this planet has access to all known facts, and we make our choices, whether those choices lean towards skepticism or belief, based upon limited knowledge.

Both skepticism and belief have room to play together in this space where not everything is–or can be–known.

I read your post about the shadowy figure you saw. It could be *any* of the possibilities you mention. It's your choice what to *believe* about it, should you choose to ascribe a belief to the experience. But you can also choose to leave it as an unknown, unexplainable phenomenon, given that you do not have all the facts. The third possibility: What facts you do have could serve to help you decide what might have been going on, and with that mix of fact and decision, you will have some sort of "belief" in the end, at least, about *this* experience. Belief need not be all-encompassing, you know, nor does it necessarily need to be associated with the supernatural.

June

Thanks for the great topic. I've been chewing over my own feelings on this for awhile.

I am a philosopher and a theologian (at least that's what my degree says). I was raised in a very Conservative Christian home where the supernatural was presented as VERY real. The modern me is the byproduct of my upbringing and my personal Christian convictions, with some modification along the way.

In addition to philosophy and theology, I have a strong interest in psychology. I love looking at the interplay between people's worldviews and ideologies as they corrospond or sometimes collide with their psyche.

I believe strongly in the presence of the supernatural or the paranormal. But I'm very skeptical of many of the experiences people have with it. I tend to look at most experiences or moments through a three part lense: 1) How does their psychological perception interpret the data? 2) How does their knowledge (or lack thereof) of the event's natural surroundings impact the interpretation? 3) Are they in control of the chain of events surrounding the event (in other words, do they take into account all actions done by others around them and their subsequent impact on the environment? something like Chaos theory)

That's why I appreciate this site so much. Not because they're disproving stuff, but because people here are daring to ask the question: is this a valid paranormal/supernatural experience? People here acknowledge that life, and moments in life, are complex sequences of events that can sometimes, many times be explained if the answer is looked for.

Do I believe in Ghosts or the traditional style of haunting? I don't think so. Would I be devastated to find out there are Ghosts in the traditional sense? Again, I don't think so. My belief in the supernatural allows me to acknowledge the interplay between supernatural and natural realms. But I consider myself a healthy skeptic: 9 out of 10 times I'm going to look and believe I'll find a natural or psychological explanation. The 10th time I'll think "WOW! That's WILD!" But somewhere deep inside I'll always hold out that perhaps we just can't explain it with what we currently know.

I like what you said there about believing, but keeping your beliefs open to question and reassessment. That, I think is the true spirit of science and skepticism. All of us fall into the "sin" of "belief" one way or another every day, most of the time not even realizing it. It's simply human nature to perceive things in ways that aren't always accurate.

However, if you're faced with something that conflicts with your beliefs and instead of being defensive or offended you are open to review and re-evaluate I think that's all anyone can really ask for or expect.

Personally, I envision it as a system where I assign each "fact" in my mind a percentage value of certainty, which can get very close to 100% but can never reach it. I'm 60% sure that some UFO sightings really are bizarre flying craft beyond our level of technology, but I'm 99.9% sure it's impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. Therefore it would take a lot more evidence to sway my opinion on the speed of light than it would to sway my opinion on UFOs — but if I were to see compelling evidence from a number of reputable sources that the speed of light could be surpassed, even that belief is open to question.

"I want to KNOW" kinda says it all, yes?

I have had several expieriences that make me sure that 'normal' extends a fair bit beyond what is generally taken as 'normal'. I do not, because of this, feel comfortable with the term 'paranormal' because it implies something outside of our generally percieved reality. If it is here, it is normal, real, within our bounds of experience. So it is not 'para'normal.

It's just something we don't quite understand yet.

And here the 'I want to know' fits perfectly. I want to understand

I will not ask anyone to 'believe'. If I have something I can't show you–that you can't experience yourself, what's the point? I can tell you all about it, but until you can experience it, it's just a story. Right?

But then again, I am not a fan of rabid skeptics like the Amazing Randi. There are limits to a healthy skepticism.

There are two instances that I use to illustrate an unhealthy skepticism.

The first deals with near death experiences and research done on them using centrifuges.

Skeptics have shown that the centrifuges they use to test G-force tolerance can induce the popular 'tunnel of light', sense of loved ones and all the other effects generated in a near death experience when testors black out from the excessive G-forces.

They like to use this to offer explanations for the near death experiences of others. To debunk those experiences.

In the tests, the centrifuges are slowed and stopped quickly so that the testors can be tended to. Why do they do this?

Because, if they do not, there is a very good chance that the testors could die.

Do you get where this is going? The testors are possibly having near death experiences, not from the action of the centrifuge, but because they are actually near death.

A lot of skeptics tend to leave that part out. It doesn't fit their preconcieved notions.

The second is the 'God Helmet'. The god helmet is a device that stimulaste certain areas of the brain in a certain pattern. By doing this it leaves the wearer feeling as if they've been touched by, or contacted by something of a divine nature.

Skeptics say that this means that 'feeling the presense of the divine' is nothing more than a carefully controlled chemical reaction.

I've actually seen the god helmet used as an argument in favor of atheism.

But a whole raft of questions go unasked–never mind unanswered. What is this feeling? How do people get it without the god helmet(some will answer 'drugs' to this)?

The questions don't get asked because they don't fit the preconcieved notions…again. The fact that the feeling CAN be generated this way means that any feeling that there is something divine is a chemical artifact. Even the question of why we have such a chemical artifact isn't questioned–what is it? what possible evolutionary purpose could it serve?

Too many people think that because something CAN be faked, it was.

Ghostlike, with all due respect I think that there is a difference between skeptic and non-believer. So technically it would be: believer vs. non-believer. A non-believer's mindset is already set in stone and nothing would shake his/her opinion no matter what.

To tell the truth, I am a skeptic (as opposed to non-believer) only because of my own experiences growing up in a haunted house, whatever that truly was. I like to think I'm as scientifically minded as they come, but what happened to me so many times cannot just be thrown out the window. I suffered a great deal for telling people about it as a child. I may criticize TAPS a lot, but I have to thank them for helping me to "come out of the closet" regarding my own experiences with the paranormal. Fear of ridicule made me keep my mouth shut for many, many years. Now I feel vindicated, in a way.

Being an atheist since childhood, I still cannot discount the existence of some kind of energy or "life force", to put it another way. It is my belief that such energy is what we are dealing with when hauntings occur. It is harder to reconcile what is called "intelligent haunting", because that seems to point to a belief in spirits. I prefer the term "existing remnants of consciousness". I know many atheists refuse to believe there is nothing beyond the physical brain, but I am open minded enough to admit that the Mind vs. Brain debate that has been going on since the time of the ancient Greeks is no more settled today then it was back then.

Logisti: I share your belief regarding the statement that nothing can travel faster then the speed of light. However, according to quantum physics, the existence of wormholes makes that unnecessary if one wants to travel through the universe. Theoretically, using wormholes IS a possibility. I'm still not convinced about UFOs, but if they exist it would not be necessary to even consider the speed of light into the equation. Pop through a wormhole and one could travel literally millions of light years. Just some food for thought.

A non-believer can still be skeptical.

Take ghosts for example.

While one may not believe in them based on lack of evidence, they can still be a skeptic and open to the possibility that ghosts do exist.

It's just that to change them from a non-believer to a believer would either take a personal experience that couldn't be dismissed or rationalized as having a natural explanation, or it'd take solid evidence.

Oubliette said: A non-believer's mindset is already set in stone and nothing would shake his/her opinion no matter what.

I think that is a true non-believer, the opposite of a true believer who thinks everything they see on GH is a ghost and can't be swayed in their opinion.

Yep! "Creature Features" on KTVU! I guess it warped us both.

Oubliette said:

Plus, IMO there is enough evidence worldwide that something is occurring. Even Prof. Wiseman, who went into his research project regarding the famous Edinburgh Vaults with years of scientific training and research behind him, came out of it admitting that something was occurring above the realm of normal expectations.

Thanks very much for pointing out this article, Oubliette! I read it and was surprised.

It's hard to know how to interpret some of those quotes. Dr. Wiseman is an affable guy and is, like an ideal skeptic, always willing to consider any possibility. (He used to study with Most Haunted's Dr. Ciarán O'Keeffe, who is credited in the paper.) On the other hand, reporters love to quote-mine.

I found Wiseman's 2003 paper on the subject, and you can read it here:

http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/wiseman/papers/BJP-hauntings.pdf

From the abstract:

Results revealed significantly more reports of unusual experiences in areas that had a reputation for being haunted. This effect was not related to participants’ prior knowledge about the reputation of these areas. However, the location of participants’ experiences correlated significantly with various environmental factors, including, for example, the variance of local magnetic fields and lighting levels. These findings strongly suggest that alleged hauntings may not necessarily represent evidence for ‘ghostly’ activity, but could be, at least in part, the result of people responding to ‘normal’ factors in their surroundings.

From reading the paper, what Wiseman found "perhaps surprising" was the number of people who reported ghostly experiences in a well-lit location full of tourists (p. 7, 11). That may have been what he was talking about in the quote.

On the other hand, the quote may have been as it seems. Still, the last line in the paper speaks for the final conclusion of his study: "Taken together, these findings strongly suggest that these alleged hauntings do not represent evidence for 'ghostly' activity, but are instead the result of people responding– perhaps unwittingly– to 'normal' factors in their surroundings."

I'm not saying anything about the reality or unreality of hauntings at the South Bridge Vaults at Edinburgh, nor am I saying that the article was deliberately misleading. The article was written in 2001, when this study was still ongoing. Still, his paper is (in my opinion) one of the best examples of paranormal research ever carried out, and I think it's very much worth reading.